Pubdate: Fri, 28 Jul 2000 Date: 07/28/2000 Source: West Australian (Australia) Author: R. W. Richards YOUR newspaper certainly makes entertaining reading. On Tuesday we had the editorial (We must break the drug barons) while five pages earlier we had the headline, Drug lords to stay: police. In Monday's edition a senior judge informed us that successfully prosecuting the big drug dealers is now virtually impossible (Mr Bigs go free, 24/7). Then we had Mr Court saying that he was not in favour of injecting rooms. While injecting rooms would be only a partial solution, the comment must have warmed the hearts of our drug dealers who would have been worried for a time that the authorities actually might do something sensible for a change. And, of course, we have the correspondents to these pages who come up with all manner of righteous indignation about drug addicts and then advocate so-called remedial measures which are savage, cruel and definitely un-Christian. To say that we can stamp out heroin addiction and supply is a nonsense. We cannot even keep it out of our jails, which are supposedly totally controlled communities. The illegal drug industry is one of our biggest industries. To say that heroin is killing our kids is a half-truth. Heroin need not kill; it is the impurities, the varying quality leading to over-dosing and the dangerous underworld environment in which drug addicts live that are the main dangers to users. Why not register heroin addicts? Allow them to buy heroin at commercial prices from certain regulated outlets. This would overcome the problems mentioned above. It would also enable us to monitor and reach users so that they can be helped when they really want to get off the stuff. Even addicts can hold down a job if they do not have to steal every day to feed their habit. And we would have fewer old ladies knocked over and killed, fewer home invasions and reduce our prison population by about a third (each prisoner in Casuarina costs between $40,000 and $60,000 a year to keep there -- and we pay for that). It would even cure the Northbridge street-prostitute problem. R. W. Richards, Applecross